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If the Stanley Cup final taught us anything, it was just how far away the Maple Leafs are from the Los Angeles Kings and just how close they might be to the New York Rangers.

It really has become two leagues now: One West, one East. All the power is with the Western Conference. The hockey is better, bigger, meaner, tougher.

The Kings said after their championship run that the defeat of the Rangers was the most comfortable of their four rounds played.

And that’s not about to change in the near future.

The simplest difference between the champion Kings and the disappointing Leafs: Just over a goal against, every game. That’s not a small number in any way. In fact, it’s a huge number. The Leafs allowed 84 more goals against in an 82 game season than did the Kings.

Jonathan Quick, for the most part, was fine in goal for Los Angeles. His former backup, Jonathan Bernier, for the most part, was fine in goal for the Leafs before he succumbed to injuries.

Los Angeles allowed fewer goals than anyone in hockey. When the Kings won their first Cup, they were second in the NHL in goals against. This year the number was 166 goals against; in 2012 it was 179.

The Leafs’ number: 252, which was 62 more goals against than the Rangers allowed. To be a playoff team, let alone a contender, that number has to come down by at least 40 goals.

The template for the Kings, moving forward, has already been carved out. There is Quick in goal, Drew Doughty on defence, and the power centres (and that’s what they are) Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter. The two combined for 51 playoff points and made matchups impossible for the opposition. All but Kopitar are on long-term contracts.

The Leafs have Bernier, they have nothing close to a Doughty on defence, nothing to match Kopitar or Carter in any way.

The Rangers template is all about speed and the forecheck, pressure on the other team’s defence, the old cliche of taking time and space away. It worked in the playoffs because they had Henrik Lundqvist in goal, because they had a team concept, because of Alain Vigneault and because they had an exceptional defenceman in Ryan McDonagh.

Bernier is not Lundqvist, but that’s not a terrible mismatch for the Leafs. Toronto doesn’t have anything close too a McDonagh, but the forwards on the Leafs compare somewhat fairly to those of the Stanley Cup-finalist Rangers.

The best New York centre, Derek Stepan, is not a whole lot better, if he is at all, than Tyler Bozak is. If given the choice, I’d probably take Bozak. The other New York centre with Brad Richards leaving and Dominic Moore heading to free agency is Derick Brassard. Nothing intimidating there.

The best Rangers wingers, Martin St. Louis, Carl Hagelin, Rick Nash are probably not much better, if at all better, than Phil Kessel, James van Riemsdyk and Joffrey Lupul. The Leafs scored more goals and had a better power play than either of the Stanley Cup finalists while not making the playoffs.

The Leafs should be able to come close to matching the Rangers in goal and up front. On defence, that is the real question and the difficulty when it comes to upgrading.

The NHL game has become so much about puck moving defencemen and having an absolute defined ‘A’ defenceman.

All of those, with the exception of Letang, will be Hall of Fame players.

The P.K. Subban effect was enormous in the post-season for the Montreal Canadiens. Chara’s disappointing playoff played a part in Boston’s defeat. McDonagh had an exceptional post-season after the first round.

The Leafs have Dion Phaneuf.

Maybe Morgan Rielly can grow into one of those ‘A’ defencemen in the next few years. Maybe.

But until then that becomes the Leafs largest concern. The weak teams, Darryl Sutter said more than once during the playoffs, play to just get in the playoffs. That’s their goal.

“And that’s why they are where they are,” said Sutter.

The Kings aim to play hockey in June. The goal becomes realistic when you have all those parts, although Sutter did some nice work taking advantage of the growth of Carter, who wasn’t central to his first Cup championship but became central to his second.

Pittsburgh hasn’t found a way to take advantage of the 1-2 punch of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. For whatever reason, only half of the Patrice Bergeron-David Krejci combo performed to playoff level this year, pushing the Bruins to the sidelines.

The Leafs have Bozak and Nazem Kadri. Here’s betting that won’t necessarily be the case in October.

Nine different teams have lost the Stanley Cup the past nine seasons, six of them from the Eastern Conference. The opening is there as always for Leafs management. This isn’t the West. Playing catch-up in the East is not impossible.